The Ensuckification of Facebook Continues

It's official: Facebook is forcing us all to switch our profiles to the new "Timeline" format, whether we want it or not. I can assure you that, empirically, it sucks.

Back when I was studying journalism, rather than making fun of journalists, they taught us that a newspaper or magazine layout should follow a Z pattern. A reader's eyes quite naturally start at the top left corner, scan right, zip down and to the left, then right again -- so your layout should work with human nature to make the sale.

They taught us to put the newest and most important information -- the item that would get readers to spend a quarter -- on the top left corner. (A quarter? Yeah, I was learning this a long time ago. But it's a timeless lesson.) If the big item was big enough, give it the whole top line of the Z. The second biggest story follows on the next part of the Z, followed by the third, and then the fourth -- if there's room for four. Three, they told us, was more or less ideal. Too much information, and the reader loses focus before he ponies up the 25¢.

Here's the layout for Timeline.

What dominates the top third of the screen? Static information. Your name, your banner (I don't have a banner yet, so just a headshot), and some personal data like job and where you went to school. You know, stuff that doesn't change very much, or at all. In other words, the first thing a visitor to your profile sees is a bunch of crap they already know. And lots of people are putting up big, busy banners which dominate your eyeballs. Timeline isn't as bad as MySpace, but only because Facebook doesn't let you use a zillion different fonts or animated GIFs. But let's keep that quiet, before Zuckerberg gets any more bright ideas.

The next place your eyeballs travel is to the status update box. That's fine for you, lousy for visitors. After that, something called "Activity." Well, I know who I just friended, and you're probably not all that interested. So... why the prominence?